Something so rare, I worried it had disappeared in our line of work."
"Okay. I give up. What was it?"
"You were a natural. That's the only way I can put it. You hadn't even started yet, but you already knew what you were doing. You knew there were some scary people out there who wanted to kill Americans. You had studied them. You spoke their language. You knew they were coming at us, which was more than ninety-nine percent of the people in the agency understood back then. And you had that journalism thing. Most people come to us from the Marines or the FBI or someplace like that, where they learn to take orders and conform to the culture. But you didn't fit the pattern. You were a smart, rebellious kid who had studied Arabic in college and worked for Time magazine, of all things--and realized the goddamn house was on fire, and that you had to do something about it. That was what I liked about you. You understood what was going on. And you still do."
"I always thought you hated reporters."
"I do. They're losers. But I like you."
Ferris shook his head, thinking of all the braggarts and armchair generals he had worked with at Time . The news business was still riding high when he had joined the magazine in 1991. They had sent him to Detroit to cover what was left of the American auto industry. He had been bored stiff and was going to quit after a year, but the barons of Time were interested in sending him abroad eventually because of his Arabic, so they brought him back to New York to cover Wall Street. That was worse than Detroit, and Ferris was going to quit for sure when Time assigned him to do a short piece on the radical Muslims who had surfaced in the 1991 attempt to bomb the World Trade Center. Ferris began reading the Arabic papers and visiting mosques. The more he talked to the sheiks, the more obvious it became: These people hate us. They don't want to negotiate anything. They want to kill us. Ferris knew he had stumbled into something important, but Time only ran a thousand words and when he complained, his editor lectured him about being a "team player." Ferris thought of writing a book about radical Islam, but he couldn't find a publisher who would give him an advance.
So he quit and went to graduate school. That was the only way he could follow what had become an obsession. His Arabic professors at Columbia were happy to have him back, although they disapproved of his studying Islamic extremism, as opposed to writing love letters to the downtrodden Palestinians. And then, six months in, there occurred one of those accidental encounters that in retrospect seem preordained: A former dean who had taken an interest in Ferris invited him to lunch. He beat around the bush for a while and at last, over coffee, asked Ferris if he ever thought of working for the Central Intelligence Agency. At first Ferris laughed. Thought about it? Hell, he'd been running away from it his whole life. Then it occurred to him: Stop running. This is who you are. And now, a decade later, he was in a hospital bed, with a steel pin in his leg, pleading to get back in the field.
Hoffman was smiling at him. "You remember what you said to me at that first meeting?"
Ferris tried to remember. The day he had graduated from The Farm, the director of training had summoned him and said that the head of the Near East Division wanted to meet with him. Right away. He made it sound like a very big deal. Ferris had been planning to spend a week in Florida, baking in the sun and drinking beer, but evidently that was out. He drove like a maniac up I-95, playing loud music the whole way, thinking how cool he was. When he got to Headquarters, the guard sent him to an office on the fourth floor. There was an ordinariness about the place that was suddenly obvious, now that Ferris was in. There were bulletin boards with notices of after-hours meetings that reminded him of high school. And there were little signs on the doors--"Electrical Closet," "Utility
"Okay. I give up. What was it?"
"You were a natural. That's the only way I can put it. You hadn't even started yet, but you already knew what you were doing. You knew there were some scary people out there who wanted to kill Americans. You had studied them. You spoke their language. You knew they were coming at us, which was more than ninety-nine percent of the people in the agency understood back then. And you had that journalism thing. Most people come to us from the Marines or the FBI or someplace like that, where they learn to take orders and conform to the culture. But you didn't fit the pattern. You were a smart, rebellious kid who had studied Arabic in college and worked for Time magazine, of all things--and realized the goddamn house was on fire, and that you had to do something about it. That was what I liked about you. You understood what was going on. And you still do."
"I always thought you hated reporters."
"I do. They're losers. But I like you."
Ferris shook his head, thinking of all the braggarts and armchair generals he had worked with at Time . The news business was still riding high when he had joined the magazine in 1991. They had sent him to Detroit to cover what was left of the American auto industry. He had been bored stiff and was going to quit after a year, but the barons of Time were interested in sending him abroad eventually because of his Arabic, so they brought him back to New York to cover Wall Street. That was worse than Detroit, and Ferris was going to quit for sure when Time assigned him to do a short piece on the radical Muslims who had surfaced in the 1991 attempt to bomb the World Trade Center. Ferris began reading the Arabic papers and visiting mosques. The more he talked to the sheiks, the more obvious it became: These people hate us. They don't want to negotiate anything. They want to kill us. Ferris knew he had stumbled into something important, but Time only ran a thousand words and when he complained, his editor lectured him about being a "team player." Ferris thought of writing a book about radical Islam, but he couldn't find a publisher who would give him an advance.
So he quit and went to graduate school. That was the only way he could follow what had become an obsession. His Arabic professors at Columbia were happy to have him back, although they disapproved of his studying Islamic extremism, as opposed to writing love letters to the downtrodden Palestinians. And then, six months in, there occurred one of those accidental encounters that in retrospect seem preordained: A former dean who had taken an interest in Ferris invited him to lunch. He beat around the bush for a while and at last, over coffee, asked Ferris if he ever thought of working for the Central Intelligence Agency. At first Ferris laughed. Thought about it? Hell, he'd been running away from it his whole life. Then it occurred to him: Stop running. This is who you are. And now, a decade later, he was in a hospital bed, with a steel pin in his leg, pleading to get back in the field.
Hoffman was smiling at him. "You remember what you said to me at that first meeting?"
Ferris tried to remember. The day he had graduated from The Farm, the director of training had summoned him and said that the head of the Near East Division wanted to meet with him. Right away. He made it sound like a very big deal. Ferris had been planning to spend a week in Florida, baking in the sun and drinking beer, but evidently that was out. He drove like a maniac up I-95, playing loud music the whole way, thinking how cool he was. When he got to Headquarters, the guard sent him to an office on the fourth floor. There was an ordinariness about the place that was suddenly obvious, now that Ferris was in. There were bulletin boards with notices of after-hours meetings that reminded him of high school. And there were little signs on the doors--"Electrical Closet," "Utility
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